Casting the Vision

I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. 
Then the LORD answered me and said: 
Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. 
If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.
Habakkuk 2:1-3

Several years ago in a sermon at Annual Conference the late Bishop Dale White talked about the lonely task of the pastor, whose job it is to always take the lead and cast a vision of justice on controversial issues.

We are supposed to be ahead of the curve. 

To be a leader is to be out in front, and it is a lonely task. If Moses had waited until his vision of freedom had broad support, the Israelites would still be in Egypt.

The Rev. Dr. C. Chappell Temple, Lead Pastor of Christ Church (UMC) in Sugar Land, Texas, seemed to take a different tack on this issue in a post titled, "Fun with Math." Writing in the Juicy Ecumenism blog of the IRD (Institute on Religion and Democracy), he points out that in the recent voting for General Conference delegates the elected clergy are more progressive than the laity.

This is not surprising, if we take Bishop White’s exhortation seriously. Pastors are supposed to be out in front. 

(Just to be clear, when we speak of the division between progressives and traditionalists in the church, we are not talking about national politics. The Progressive movement in American politics grew out of the Social Gospel in the  late nineteenth century and today’s Progressives share that heritage, but they should not be confused with the progressives and centrists in the church.)

Dr. Temple argues that although 76% of the elected delegations are progressive or centrist and more than half of the Annual Conferences passed resolutions opposing the Traditional Plan, that does not accurately reflect the perspective of those who sit in the pews.

Maybe it doesn't accurately reflect the perspective of the laity, but 76% is a big number. 

And it is significant that more than half of the Annual Conferences passed resolutions against a plan that passed by a narrow majority at General Conference.

But Dr. Temple argues that if we look more closely at the numbers they tell a different story. He points out that the Texas Conference elected a mostly progressive or centrist delegation of clergy and a wholly traditionalist delegation of laity. Eight of the nine clergy from the Texas Conference are progressive or centrist, but by our system, each one required only 50% plus one vote to be elected. If we looked at the actual vote totals we would find that the real margin was closer to 5-4 than 8-1.

And then he makes an important observation:

“The point is that in a system involving multiple candidates for multiple positions each requiring a majority vote it’s simply not possible to draw conclusions as to the true mind of the whole church when it comes to controversial issues.”

If that sounds familiar it’s because Adam Hamilton and Mike Slaughter made that same argument several General Conferences ago when they proposed inserting a paragraph in the Book of Discipline recognizing that we were not of one mind on the issues surrounding LGBTQ inclusion. The Traditionalists narrowly defeated that proposal because they had no problem building church law on a slim majority and using that law to punish those on the other side.

He concludes with an observation and a suggestion:

“In the end, it’s pretty clear thus that at least on the question of human sexuality that we United Methodists are far more closely divided than the delegate count might imply.  What is incumbent upon us a church thus is to find a way to honor those differences and create new communities of faith that can live side by side, though with enough separation to stop our long internecine warfare.”

He is right on both counts.

We are closely divided on the issue of human sexuality and we need to find a way to honor those differences so that we can live side by side.

I agree.

Let’s do it.

We can call it the One Church Plan.



Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

The Traditionalist Plan Was Designed to Do Harm, But It May Do Some Good

But Joseph said to them . . . “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.”
Genesis 50:20

We have been a Reconciling Congregation for five years. But until very recently we had never displayed a Rainbow Flag. We never discussed it. But we’re New Englanders and we have an innate resistance to making a display of our religious convictions. Its just how we're built.

That changed rather abruptly after the Special Session of General Conference 2019 concluded at the end of February and we heard with finality that the delegates had voted (by a narrow margin) that they hated their LGBTQIA siblings even more than they loved Jesus.

We decided that we needed to have a Rainbow Flag in front of the church. We thought it was important to differentiate ourselves from those folks at General Conference. We are United Methodists (and still mostly proud of it), but we are not those people.

We did not have a real flag, but Pastor Carol, always a woman of action, searched through the Sunday School closet and found a rainbow colored fabric we had used to make a “coat of many colors” for Joseph in a children’s musical a few years ago.

It was not a very good representation of a rainbow flag, but it did make me think about the juxtaposition of the flag with Joseph and his many colored coat. 

And Joseph’s words to his brothers.

Many years after they sold him into slavery in Egypt, and after he had risen from slavery into prominence in Egypt, his brothers came to him in a time of famine begging him for food. When they recognized him they expected brutal retribution, but he gave them forgiveness instead.

They intended to do harm and yet good came of it.

With the power and prominence he gained in Egypt, Joseph basically saved the world from famine.

I don’t believe that God “planned” the triumph of traditionalism at General Conference but I do believe that something good can come from it.

Two recent gatherings give me hope. 

On May 17-18 350 activists met at Lake Harriet UMC in Minneapolis. Calling themselves “Our Movement Forward,” they adopted a statement that serves as a preamble to a longer proclamation completed by organizers after the summit:

“We dream of a just and loving church — one that is relevant, growing, and ignited by the life-giving and world-changing power of the Holy Spirit,” the preamble says. “Our passion for justice is only surpassed by our hope in Christ Jesus. And as people of faith, we proclaim that the Good News of Jesus Christ is for all.”

Then on May 20-22 600 Progressives and Centrists met at the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas for a gathering called “UMC Next.”

The group affirmed four core principles:

• To be passionate followers of Jesus Christ, committed to a Wesleyan vision of Christianity.
• To resist evil, injustice and oppression in all forms and toward all people and build a church which affirms the full participation of all ages, nations, races, classes, cultures, gender identities, sexual orientations and abilities.
• To reject the Traditional Plan approved at General Conference 2019 as inconsistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ and resist its implementation.
• To work to eliminate discriminatory language and the restrictions and penalties in the Book of Discipline regarding LGBTQ individuals.

The truth is that we should have gotten here sooner. Much sooner. And it should not have taken the debacle of General Conference to force the issue. But this is where we are. And in spite of the stony road that brought us to this point, there is hope for the future.

Rev. Dr. Adam Hamilton, Lead Pastor of the Church of the Resurrection and one of the conveners of UMC Next, echoed Joseph’s words to his brothers when he observed that this was one of the unintended benefits of the adoption of the Traditionalist Plan by the 2019 General Conference was that it pushed centrist churches to take action. Now, he said, the centrists are saying, “not anymore.” Those churches find themselves with no choice but to take a stand. And they are saying, “We’re not going to be quiet anymore. We’re a church for everyone.”

When asked what the UMC Next participants meant by their commitment to “reject the Traditional Plan” and “resist its implementation,” he said that some annual conferences will ordain LGBTQ persons as clergy, and that “thousands and thousands of churches will stand with LGBTQ people.”

And then he summarized that by saying, “We’re headed toward forming a church that my granddaughter will be proud to be a member of.”

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

The Way We Were: Remembering Bishop White

He has told you, O people, what is good; 
and what does the LORD require of you 
but to do justice, 
and to love kindness, 
and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8

Bishop C. Dale White passed away yesterday, March 29, 2019, at the age of 94.

For many of us the loss is personal, but it is also a loss for our denomination and for the larger church. In remembering Dale, we remember the way we used to be and we remember what we have lost.

In his lifetime he embodied the best of United Methodism. He was a faithful and effective witness for social justice, and a fearless advocate for the core values of the Gospel. He had deep faith and uncompromising integrity. He always spoke the truth, even when the truth was hard to hear, and he always spoke the truth in love, with genuine caring for those who did not see things as clearly as he did.

Dale was my first District Superintendent. He called me to go to my first appointment, in Mansfield, Massachusetts. And I called him for advice more times than I have called all of the District Superintendents since then. And he was always patient and helpful. Just before he left for the Jurisdictional Conference at which he was elected Bishop, he called and asked me to go to Mathewson Street in Providence to work with Bill Ziegler.

In an article in UMNews, Linda Bloom reports that Jaydee Hanson, a longtime friend and former staff member of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, described Dale as having a “gentle fearlessness” that engaged people. “Dale had an abundance of vision but offered it in a way that people could adopt it,” he told United Methodist News Service.

Dale was genuinely pained by the way that the causes he advocated so relentlessly were unsettling and disorienting to those who were stuck in old paradigms. He knew the cost of doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly in the ways of God.

After his retirement as a Bishop he preached at our Annual Conference about the role of the pastor in the life of a congregation. One of the most difficult aspects of our calling, he said, is the responsibility to always be ahead of the curve on issues of social justice. If we are faithful we will always be in the lonely position of advocating for causes that have barely entered the consciousness of many of the people we serve. 

Retired Bishop William Boyd Grove, a friend and colleague of Dale’s, spoke of his interest in interfaith relations, international affairs and the lives of people everywhere which landed him in some unusual places. In the early months of the Iran hostage crisis, Grove recounted, Dale was part of a seven-member U.S. delegation that traveled to Iran in hopes of helping the situation by “reaffirming and restoring friendship between the American and Iranian peoples.”

Grove observed that one of Dale’s most significant contributions was the 1986 public statement of the United Methodist Council of Bishops called "In Defense of Creation: The Nuclear Crisis and a Just Peace."

More than any other bishop, said Grove, Dale was responsible for that pastoral letter and study guide. “It was Dale’s idea and he chaired the task force, and it was really his baby.” And it had a profound impact on the church and beyond the church, by moving the nuclear arms debate beyond politics and foreign policy.

In 1996 Dale joined with fourteen other United Methodist Bishops who chose to break their silence and speak out in opposition to the prohibition of LGBTQ persons serving in ordained ministry.

Not surprisingly, Bishop White was not just the embodiment of everything that the church has traditionally stood for, he was also the incarnation of everything the right-wing groups have opposed.

If you knew Dale, you knew him to be a person of deep faith. But for those who equate faith with right-wing politics and quasi-fundamentalist theology, they could not believe that he was a “real Christian.” He was frequently asked if he was “born again.” He would smile and say, “Yes, just this morning.” Faith was, for him, a constant process of renewal and rebirth. We are continually being made new.

Finally, or maybe we should say, “firstly,” there was his marriage to Gwen. Gwendolyn Ruth Horton and Clarence Dale White were married on August 25, 1946. They were married for more than 70 years before Gwen’s death in 2017. They shared the same deep faith and the same openness to the spiritual journey. Together they raised six children and left a legacy of shared love and discipleship.

The way they were is the way the church ought to be.

The Traditional Plan and the Bible: Even the Devil Can Quote Scripture

Jesus Is Tempted in the Wilderness

Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Luke 4:9-13

The Lectionary text for the first Sunday in Lent provides a good excuse to revisit the biblical argument with regard to the Traditional Plan and same sex relationships.

The problem is not with the scripture, but with how it is used, by whom and for what reason. The use of scripture to control and manipulate others is a great temptation for people of faith, and it is made even more tempting when it appears to come with deep sincerity and the best of intentions.

In Luke’s version of the temptation story, the devil quotes scripture when he presents the last temptation. 

This is worth noting because the original story must have come from Jesus himself. There were no other witnesses. He was alone in the wilderness, fasting and praying. Shakespeare authored the famous quotation: “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” But the idea originated with Jesus.

The importance of the detail is not diminished by the fact that the struggle was taking place within Jesus’ mind and soul. The devil or “tempter” was not some external spiritual being, but an inner experience of the spirit. It is useful to remember this story when we contemplate what the Bible says about homosexuality. It is widely accepted that “the Bible condemns homosexuality,” but the reality of the biblical witness is more complex and nuanced.

The problem is not new. In the decades leading up to the Civil War the Abolitionists and the slave owners both cited scripture. The Abolitionists built their case on the teachings of Jesus and on the broad themes of the prophets. The slave owners countered with the numerous specific references to slavery in the Bible. There are, in fact, 375 references to slavery, 82 of them are in the Gospels and another 58 are in Paul’s letters. Not once is the institution of slavery condemned.

If we reduce everything to biblical literalism, then the slave owners win, 375 to 0. But one would be hard pressed to find a Christian today who would argue in favor of slavery, and no serious student of the Bible would agree that the Bible is pro-slavery. The great themes of the Bible move in the opposite direction, toward freedom and mutual respect. Jesus’ simple commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” (taken from Leviticus 19:18) outweighs all 375 references.

The assertion that the Bible condemns homosexuality is built on just 7 references. Three are in the Hebrew scriptures and four are in the New Testament. These are the passages typically used to “prove” that the Bible condemns homosexuality.

The late Walter Muelder, who was Dean of the Boston University School of Theology for many years, and a pioneer in the discipline of Christian Social Ethics, was adamant that when we go to the Bible for ethical direction, we cannot pick and choose. Seven passages are not enough to construct an ethic. They are not irrelevant. But they cannot be determinative. On the other hand, if you believe in biblical inerrancy, and you believe that each verse is equally inspired and authoritative, then you cannot question the authority of even a single verse, let alone seven passages. I think it is a useful exercise, just to be clear on what those passages actually say and mean, rather than to assume that we know. 

The Story of Sodom and Gomorrah

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. Ezekiel 16:49 

The first, and certainly the best known passage, is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. My guess is that when most people think about the sins of Sodom, they do not think about having “pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease,” and an unwillingness to “aid the poor and needy.”

But there it is.

We go to the Bible, looking for self-righteous moralisms and end up with social justice. Again. When it comes to the question of how we should be living our lives, it’s always about social justice. Or as Jesus summarized it in the Great Commandment, it’s about loving God and neighbor. (Loving God means loving your neighbor. And loving your neighbor is loving God.) We should keep Ezekiel’s commentary in mind as we review the narrative in Genesis. 

The story begins with a happy episode. Three strangers come to visit Abraham and Sarah, who are living in a tent by the oaks of Mamre. The men are messengers from God, angels, who have come to reaffirm the promise that Abraham and Sarah will have a son. They speak with Abraham outside of the tent. Inside the tent, Sarah laughs, because it seems preposterous that at her age she could have a child. And there is a wonderful interchange in which the men chastise her for laughing. She insists that she did not laugh and the episode ends with one of the men saying, “Oh yes, you did laugh.”

Then the men set out toward Sodom, and Abraham goes with them to show the way. God tells Abraham that the men are going to Sodom and Gomorrah to destroy the cities, because there has been such a great outcry over their sin. Abraham then begins to bargain with God. What about the righteous who live in those cities, will the LORD sweep them away with the guilty? Abraham drives a hard bargain, and God agrees that if they can find ten righteous, then the cities will be spared.

After the bargain is struck, “the LORD went his way,” and Abraham returned home, and “the two angels came to Sodom.”

At this point, things go downhill in a hurry. The strangers (angels) are met at the gate of the city by Lot, who insists that they spend the night with him. He makes them a feast, and they enjoy the meal together, but before they can lie down for the night, a crowd gathers outside. “The men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house.” The crowd demands that Lot send out the strangers, “so that we may know them.” In other words, so that we may have sexual relations with them.

Lot goes out to argue with the crowd and even offers to let them rape his two virgin daughters, rather than give up the men who have come “under the shelter of my roof.” But the crowd is undeterred and threatens to do even worse to Lot if he does not give up the strangers. At that point, the strangers reach out and pull Lot back into the house with them, and strike “with blindness” all those in the crowd, “so that they are unable to find the door.”

In the morning the strangers send Lot and his family away to safety, and fire rains down on the cities until they are destroyed.

It is a dark tale. There are rays of light, but they are not easy to find. No one would count this among their favorite Bible stories. It is not the Sermon on the Mount, or the Good Samaritan. It isn’t the Twenty-third Psalm, or the Ten Commandments. It isn’t Micah or Amos or Hosea or Ruth. It isn’t even on a par with Esther.

The story is not just Patriarchal; it is deeply misogynistic. It’s good that Lot offers hospitality to strangers, and it’s good that he tries to protect his guests. But in his attempts to dissuade the men of Sodom from attacking the strangers, Lot offers to let them rape his daughters. And the story implies that the gang rape and humiliation of women is not as bad as the gang rape and humiliation of men.

It is difficult to claim ethical guidance from a story which is fundamentally immoral. One of the challenges in reading and interpreting the Bible is separating the timeless truths from the stories that simply reflect the prejudices and limited perspectives of a primitive people. The story of Sodom clearly falls into the latter category. We need to recognize it as such, and let it go.

Alternatively, we can focus, as Ezekiel did, on the guilt of Sodom that (apparently) first led to God’s judgment: “she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” That is a biblical truth which stands the test of time.

Two Verses from the Holiness Code 

in Leviticus

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. Leviticus 20:13

Little Good Harbor sits on the southeastern coast of Georgetown Island. It is a charming place with an equally charming name. It is a small harbor, but contrary to what one might expect from the name, it is not very good. It is too shallow and has too many rocks. Though it looks inviting, it is almost useless. So it is of “Little Good.”

The Priestly Code of Leviticus is in many ways the Little Good Harbor of biblical wisdom. It is not as shallow as Little Good Harbor, but there are lots of rocks. In the storms of life it does not provide safe haven. The idea of a guide for living that sets God’s people apart, is a good one, but the actual code is deeply flawed.

Leviticus has two almost identical verses of condemnation. The first passage, verse 22 of chapter 18, says simply, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” The second passage, printed above, adds the penalty of death, and notes that those who commit such acts are responsible for their fate; “their death is upon them.”

The condemnation is clear and unmistakable.

Here, as in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, we see reflections of a patriarchal and misogynistic culture. To lie “with a male as with a woman” was to treat the male as if he were female. This was the ultimate humiliation. Judaism and Christianity have moved toward gender equality, but the subjugation of women remains deeply imbedded in Middle Eastern culture. The condemnation of male homosexuality is a reflection of the patriarchal devaluation of women.

“Abomination” is a strong word. And it is not used often. In the Priestly Code of Leviticus, it is an abomination to eat an eagle, an osprey, or a vulture. It is an abomination to eat a burnt offering after the second day. And it is an abomination to eat anything unclean. Eating such things may be unappetizing, but it hardly seems “an abomination.”

The death penalty is serious. In Leviticus, it is mandated for murder, for adultery, for blasphemy, for cursing one’s mother or father, and for “wizards and mediums.” In Exodus and Deuteronomy, the death penalty is invoked for breaking Sabbath, as well as for outsiders who come near the Tabernacle. Looking back across the millennia, that seems a little harsh.

We know from historical research that the death penalty was seldom used for these crimes. At this point, the Torah uses the language of death, not literally as a legal sentence, but metaphorically, to indicate the seriousness of the offense. Just as in our less enlightened moments we might say, “anyone who does that ought to be shot!”

When we read that it is an abomination and that it calls for the death penalty, we read it as a very strong condemnation. But that reading is at least somewhat tempered by the recognition that many of the other offenses that are described with that same harsh language do not seem as “abominable” to twenty-first century readers.

Leviticus is tough going. More than one well-intentioned and sincere Christian setting out to read the whole Bible from cover to cover has struggled through the long narratives of Genesis and Exodus, only to come to a grinding halt when confronted with the strange list of arcane laws that make up the Priestly Code of Leviticus. In order to understand it, we need to avoid getting lost in the details.

If we set out to construct a sexual ethic on the foundation of the two condemning verses in Leviticus, then we need to explain why we are picking and choosing those verses and not also including the admonitions about the ritual purification of women after menstruation and many other similar laws. And we need to explain our use of a code which is patriarchal and misogynistic. Its purpose is to set the people apart from the surrounding pagan culture, yet in its attitudes toward women it generally reflects that culture.

The premise of the Holiness Code is that God’s people should be holy as God is holy; that in our daily living we should remind ourselves of who we and whose we are. When the rabbis read these laws, they read them with that end in mind. The details are flawed, the product of a primitive world view and a pre-scientific understanding. But if we can focus beyond that, on the vision behind the details, then we can find light for our journey.

Paul told the church in Corinth that the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. When it comes to the study of Torah, Rabbi Paul echoes the ancient rabbinic insight that God is found in the white spaces. Leviticus is about a people set apart and called to be different. The details may confound us, but the greater vision is of a life shaped by the calling of God.

Four New Testament References

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. Romans 1:26-27 

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. I Corinthians 6:9-10

This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching I Timothy 1:9-10 

Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Jude 1:7 

As a Christian, I find the New Testament passages more troubling. We claim the whole Bible as our sacred story, but we also want to believe that Jesus brought a cosmic change in our thinking. Rightly or wrongly, I think we expect more enlightenment when we read the New Testament.

The passages from Hebrew scripture are more easily dismissed. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is clearly primitive. And no one takes Leviticus seriously.

Although Christians sometimes over-emphasize the uniqueness of Jesus’ teachings, he did bring a new perspective on many issues. He also deepened and expanded insights previously found in the Prophets. And he revealed great truths about human beings. But he did not change human nature.

Regardless of what we may believe about the inspiration of the biblical writers, we know that the actual words were written by human beings. The people who wrote the Bible (who put the letters and words on the page) were not perfect. And they were subject to the influences of the surrounding culture.

When Paul wrote his letters, he did not write them as sacred scripture. He was writing to specific people in specific places, offering advice and counsel intended for their situation. He did not know that two millennia later Christians would be studying those letters and reading them in worship as sacred texts. And the same is true for the unknown authors of the other New Testament epistles.

Of the four texts cited above, the last three can be dismissed rather easily. The last two, from the First letter to Timothy and from the Letter to Jude, were written fifty to one hundred years after Paul’s death, and do not carry the same authority as a letter from the Apostle. The Corinthians passage, like the passages from Timothy and Jude is written with ambiguous language which makes the meaning unclear. These texts are talking about some sort of inappropriate sexual behavior, but it is not clear what it is. What is certain, is that they are not talking about a loving, consensual, committed same sex relationship between two adults.

The Romans text is more difficult. We know with nearly one hundred percent certainty that it was written by Paul. That makes it hard to ignore if you believe as I do that Paul was the greatest Christian theologian, that all subsequent Christian theology is a footnote to Paul, and that his inspiration and brilliance were the driving force behind the spread of Christianity in the ancient world.

These two verses from Romans have probably done more to harm Christian attitudes toward homosexuality than anything else in the Bible. So what do we make of this?

First, Paul’s primary interest in this passage is not homosexuality, he is writing about what happens when we turn away from God. When we turn away from God, says Paul, we do “unnatural” things. The sexual relations which Paul describes are the result and not the cause or our turning away.

Second, his apparent reason for rejecting same sex relations is that they are “unnatural.” But our sense of what is “natural” is not fixed. In the nineteenth century, it was thought “unnatural” for blacks to be equal to whites. A hundred years ago it was “unnatural” for children with learning disabilities to be in public school. Fifty years ago a majority of Americans believed that marriage between blacks and whites was “unnatural.” Our sense of what is natural has changed. Is it unreasonable to believe that if Paul were alive now, he would see things differently?

Paul wrote about what he saw in the context of his own time and place. What may have been true in his time is not necessarily true in our time. One of the great biblical truths from Abraham and Sarah onward is that God always calls us into the future. As Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, “This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward for what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call in Christ Jesus.”



Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 


*The original version of this post was published in January of 2014 as our congregation was in the process of becoming a Reconciling Congregation.

Losing My Religion

Thirty years ago I mentored a young man who wanted to be a United Methodist minister.

He and his family came to the church looking for Christian education for the kids. They had no real church background. It was all new. They loved the church right away and were soon at the center of church life.

Tom (not his real name) asked lots of questions. He asked about the Bible and about theology and we had some great conversations. He was smart and inquisitive and totally captured by Jesus. He wanted to be a disciple in every possible way.

It was not long before he spoke with me about becoming a candidate for ordained ministry. I remember the excitement we felt when the congregation voted to support and affirm his candidacy.

He left his job and went to seminary full time.

I was convinced that he had the gifts and graces for ministry and that he would be a great pastor.

It soon became clear from our conversations that Tom was becoming much more conservative in his theology and that he was trending toward a much more literalistic reading of the Bible. In my mind, that was less than optimum but I still could see him as an excellent pastor.

But the Conference Board of Ministry did not see him as I did. They turned him down. They continued him as a Local Pastor but they would not recommend him for ordination.

I was outraged.

I made phone calls to everyone I could think of, including the Bishop, to plead his case. I wrote letters and the church wrote letters.

There was plenty of room for Tom, I thought, in the big tent of United Methodist theology.

And I had many conversations about it with friends and colleagues.

One of those conversations imprinted itself in my brain.

My friend and colleague Kent Moorehead listened attentively as I told him what had happened to Tom and how zealously I had advocated on his behalf.

After a short exchange, Kent smiled and told me that he admired my loyalty and my efforts. Then he said this:

“That’s great, Bill, but you do realize that if they are ever in the majority, those people will vote you out in a heartbeat.”

And yesterday in St. Louis that is exactly what they did.

Tom was not there. He drifted  around some very conservative churches in our conference and then into other denominations. But his soul mates were in St. Louis. And by a slim margin they voted to make United Methodism a rigidly literalistic and judgmental denomination with no room for dissent.

They chose law over grace.

They put the highest value on obeying the rules.

They will talk about biblical authority, but what they mean is that everyone should agree with how they read the Bible: with narrow judgment focused on the narrow issue of LGBTQIA exclusion.

That’s it.

Technically, I have not lost my religion. I can still be a Christian. But I have lost my denomination.

I will not go gently.

I will not comply with the demand for a loyalty oath.

And I will work for a new and better church rising from the wreckage.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

Collateral Damage

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!”

Matthew 23:23-24

We need to be absolutely clear that in the Christian Church’s war on LGBTQ persons, our LGBTQ siblings have borne the overwhelming weight of the suffering. The Traditionalists often claim that they have had no desire to hurt anyone, but that does not mitigate the pain they have inflicted.

But there has also been collateral damage.

And the collateral damage should not be underestimated. It is wide and deep and it will have lasting effects on the whole church.

We have trivialized our understanding of the Bible.

We are straining out gnats and swallowing camels.

There are seven passages in the Bible that are typically used to “prove” that the Bible condemns same sex relationships. They consist of a few hundred words; a small fraction of the total word count of nearly a million.

And these seven “clobber verses” are all problematic in one way or another. When Christians act as if an authoritative biblical witness can be found by lifting these seven passages out of context we trivialize the whole Bible.

Those who read the Bible this way become de facto literalists and they make it much more difficult to appreciate the Bible as a guide to faith. It becomes a rule book rather than an inspiring narrative. Instead of being a book of big ideas, it becomes a book of isolated verses.

And those who have tried to counter the condemnations of the traditionalists have typically joined the debate on those same terms. We counter one series of passages with another. We cite verses. And even though we may be using those verses as illustrations rather than as proof texts, to the secular world it looks like proof-texting.

It is more like a game of biblical trivia than an honest exploration of the biblical witness. And the result is that we diminish the meaning of the Scriptures.

We appear to care more about archaic and anachronistic rules than we do about actual human beings. The traditionalists may claim to be honoring Scripture. And that may be their honest intention. But in practical terms, they achieve a high view of Scripture by making a few verses more important than the people for whom the whole biblical witness is intended.

We have trivialized the meaning of sin.

Paul Tillich, one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth (or any other) century, questioned whether the Christian concept of sin could survive in the modern world. He argued that for modern people a more helpful word for sin is separation.  In his famous sermon, “You Are Accepted,” he described sin as a state of separation: separation from God, from others, and from ourselves. And he defined grace as the acceptance which overcomes that separation and reunites us with God, with others, and with ourselves.

If sin was a difficult concept in the middle of the twentieth century, it is nearly impossible now.

The traditionalist focus on the “sin” of same sex relationships is spectacularly unhelpful.

In the 21^st century we do not see sex as inherently sinful. Forced sex is sinful. Unfaithfulness we can see as sinful. But sex between consenting and committed adults is not seen as sinful. Almost every couple I have married has been living together. And those that weren’t living together were typically splitting time between houses or apartments.

Focusing on the sin of same sex relationships comes off as hypocritical.

But that is not the biggest problem.

When we try to identify sin with same sex relationships we lose focus on the sins that are central to the biblical witness: economic and social injustice. The Bible is far more concerned with how we treat poor people than with our sex lives.

The focus on sex is petty and hypocritical and it takes away from issues that really should concern us as Christians.

We have made it look like we do not believe in science.

The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental illness from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) approximately twenty minutes after the United Methodist Church declared it to be “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Those of us who actually believed in the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience) assumed it would not be long before the Book of Discipline caught up with the science and revised our understanding of same sex relationships. But we underestimated the growing influence of right wing theology and selective biblical literalism.

We are at odds with the best insights of science and medicine.

We appear backward, primitive, and superstitious.

And United Methodists find themselves lumped together with those who think the world was made in seven days five thousand years ago, and evolution is a hoax. Not surprisingly, this costs us credibility. But it goes far beyond sex and biology. The bad science undermines the biblical witness across a broad spectrum of ethical and moral issues.

It makes us appear irrelevant.

And then. Finally. We just look stupid.

Traditionalists can talk about being counter-cultural, and that could be a good thing. We should be counter-cultural in our rejection of violence, and greed, and selfishness.

At its core, Christianity is profoundly counter-cultural.

But this. Is just. Stupid.

As a wise person once observed, “Just because you are a fool does not mean you are a fool for Christ. Sometimes you’re just a damned fool.”

Those of us who are still affirming a faith that is open and accepting might hope that we would not be affected by the loud condemnations of the traditionalists. But it just doesn’t work that way.

Those who condemn our LGBTQ siblings do not speak for the whole church. They certainly do not speak for the whole of the United Methodist Church.

They do not speak for the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, The Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalists, and others.

And in a broader faith context they do not speak for Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist Judaism.

But to much of the secular world, and among many casual Christians, those voices of condemnation sound like the official voice of Christianity. And, in a general sense, condemnation seems like the singular voice of organized religion.

In the war on our LGBTQ siblings, Christianity is just collateral damage.

*It is important to read the 23^rd chapter of Matthew within the context of our understanding that Jesus was himself a Pharisee and that what he describes is an internal conflict.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

Mean and Meaner

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28

On May 7 the United Methodist Council of Bishops announced the results of voting on five amendments to the church’s constitution.

The first and second of the proposed amendments dealt with promoting gender equality and both were narrowly defeated, falling just short of the two-thirds majority needed for adoption.

Our church failed to support gender equality.

I know. 

Seriously. 

You’re thinking, “Did I just get caught in a time warp? Isn’t this the twenty-first century?”

Apparently, some of those wacky Methodists are still stuck in the 1800’s. We really are a crazy bunch of folks. This is the point at which our atheist friends just roll their eyes. And the church—the whole church—takes another step toward cultural irrelevance.

To their credit, the Council of Bishops expressed “dismay” at the results.

But not everyone is unhappy. Writing in the “Juicy Ecumenism” blog of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, John Lomperis celebrated the vote as a victory for “faithful” and “orthodox” United Methodists.

The good news is that this clearly reveals the patriarchal bias behind the “orthodox” objections to the full inclusion of LGBTQ folks in the life of the church. The IRD and the Wesleyan Covenant Association and their allies embrace a narrow biblical literalism which leads to an anti-female as well as anti-gay agenda.

This is the full text of the first amendment, which fell short of adoption when it received 66.5% of the vote:

“As the Holy Scripture reveals, both men and women are made in the image of God and, therefore, men and women are of equal value in the eyes of God. The United Methodist Church recognizes it is contrary to Scripture and to logic to say that God is male or female, as maleness and femaleness are characteristics of human bodies and cultures, not characteristics of the divine. The United Methodist Church acknowledges the long history of discrimination against women and girls. The United Methodist Church shall confront and seek to eliminate discrimination against women and girls, whether in organizations or in individuals, in every facet of its life and in society at large. The United Methodist Church shall work collaboratively with others to address concerns that threaten the cause of women’s and girl's equality and well-being.”

The problem, according to Mr. Lomperis, is in this sentence: “The United Methodist Church recognizes it is contrary to Scripture and to logic to say that God is male or female, as maleness and femaleness are characteristics of human bodies and cultures, not characteristics of the divine.”

Mr. Lomperis acknowledges that “there is some to truth to this sentence,” but he argues that “some radical United Methodists have challenged honestly acknowledging the fact that Jesus Christ is a human male,” and worries that this sentence might be used to advance “such agendas.”

It would be helpful if “traditionalists” could “honestly acknowledge” that while the historical Jesus was a male human being, that is not a proper description of the cosmic Christ, the risen one who is present to us now. When we see Christ present in the world today, that presence is not limited by gender.

But wait.

There’s more. And Mr. Lomperis puts it in bold for emphasis:

“Among older generations of seminary radicals in our denomination, there was once a strong movement to avoid using any ‘masculine words’ in reference to God – such as ‘He,’ ‘Him,’ ‘His,’ ‘Father,’ ‘King,’ or ‘Kingdom’ – no matter how awkward this could make some sentences sound. The defeat of Amendment #1 would seem to indicate that this movement has crested, and is now mercifully fading within the United Methodist Church. Thanks be to God!”

Speaking for at least some members of that “older generation,” I am flattered to be called a radical. Isn’t that what disciples of Christ are supposed to be? (If only we really lived up to that description!)

I confess that the movement led to some awkward hymn lyrics, but there are two very important points on the other side. First, the masculine language for God is part of the devaluation of women. And second, that language reinforces our tendency toward anthropomorphic images for God.

Mr. Lomperis finds the second proposed amendment, which gained 61.3% of the vote, even more objectionable:

“The United Methodist Church is part of the church universal, which is one Body in Christ.  The United Methodist Church acknowledges that all persons are of sacred worth. All persons shall be eligible to attend its worship services, participate in its programs, receive the sacraments, upon baptism be admitted as baptized members, and upon taking vows declaring the Christian faith, become professing members in any local church in the connection.  In the United Methodist church, no conference or other organizational unit of the Church shall be structured so as to exclude any member or any constituent body of the Church because of race, color, national origin, ability, or economic condition, nor shall any member be denied access to an equal place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church because of race, color, gender, national origin, ability, age, marital status, or economic condition.”

This, he argues, was a “sneaky” attempt to commit the United Methodist Church “to absolute non-discrimination for ALL levels of leadership (‘in the life, worship, and governance of the Church’) on the basis of ‘gender,’ ‘marital status,’ ‘age,’ or ‘ability.’”

He fears that “marital status” might be used to support those in same sex marriages and that a “transgenderist ideology” might insist on the ordination of “individuals who reject their God-given sexual identity and claim a ‘gender’ of being something other than male or female.”

I am sure Mr. Lomperis does not see the hatefulness and cruelty in his statement. 

But read it again. 

He defines transgender folks as “individuals who reject their God-given sexual identity and claim a ‘gender’ of being something other than male or female.”

When I think about the pain some people go through in understanding who they are and struggling to align what they know to be true about their deepest identity with how they present themselves in the world—and when I think about how they are often bullied by “Christians” who believe that they have “rejected their God-given sexual identity,” it breaks my heart.

Writing again in bold face, Mr. Lomperis concludes:

“The defeat of Amendment #2 shows that not only have liberals been losing ground in their efforts to get our General Conference to submit to LGBTQ ideology, but that liberals lack the strength to sneakily achieve their goals even through such a roundabout way as this innocent-sounding, hard-to-oppose proposal, which was effectively a Trojan horse.”

It is worth noting again that though we did “lack the strength” to enact these amendments, the “yes” votes were over 60% on both amendments, and significantly higher in the United States. This was not really a rejection; it was a failure of affirmation.

But beyond that, the vote and the explanation of it give us a clear indication of the motivations behind the work of the IRD, the WAC, Good News, the Confessing Movement, UM Action, and their allies. 

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

Finding the Way Forward

Bishop Bruce Ough, Preaching to the Council of Bishops

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 

Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 

Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Mark 10:46-52

Bishop Bruce Ough, President of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, used that text for his sermon as he addressed the Bishops gathered in Chicago for a weeklong meeting to develop a response to the work of the Commission on a Way Forward for the United Methodist Church.

For decades the United Methodist Church has been willfully blind to the cries of our LGBTQ siblings and their allies. Bishop Ough did not say that to his colleagues, but he came close. You can read the whole sermon by clicking here.

“Dear colleagues,” he declared, “the church is watching. The world is watching us. The eyes of the entire denomination, and many of our ecumenical partners, are upon us as we gather this week. An anxious, schismatic, yet profoundly hopeful church is watching, waiting, wondering what will be our response to the final report from the Commission on a Way Forward.  What will we recommend?  What will we discern?  What will we decide?”

For better or worse, the world is not watching. I don’t even think most Methodists are watching, though perhaps they should be.

This is a momentous time for us as a denomination. And Bishop Ough challenged his colleagues:

“We will have to determine – individually and collectively – if we are seeking a win for the whole church, particularly those on the margins of the church and society and the generations yet to be reached and yet to be born – or if we are only seeking an immediate, short-term win for our constituency, caucus or conference. This is the only way we will have a chance to become a leadership group.”

Are we “seeking a win for the whole church, particularly those on the margins?”

Will we finally end our discrimination against our LGBTQ siblings, or will we double down on exclusion by increasing the penalties against LGBTQ pastors or pastors who officiate at same sex weddings?

Bishop Ough told a story about the first time he served communion as a student pastor. As soon as he gave the invitation, his son Stuart, who was five or six at the time, jumped up from his seat and raced toward the communion table. A woman in the front pew reached out at the last possible moment, grabbed Stuart, and sat him down beside her. Stuart was in tears.

On the way home from church, Stuart sat in the back seat of the car, crying. Bishop Ough and his wife “tried to explain to him why the congregation’s tradition of not having children participate in communion was to be respected for the time being” (emphasis mine.)

Not surprisingly, those explanations “were hollow and did not heal his broken spirit.”

In between sobs, Stuart repeatedly asked, “Why can’t I come and have some of Jesus’ bread and juice?”

And that story led the bishop to this conclusion:

“Friends, there are tens of thousands of persons within our churches, and many hundreds of thousands more beyond our churches, who are sobbing uncontrollably today because in one form or another, intentionally or simply mistakenly, we have kept them from the table of the fullness of God’s grace, love and healing presence.”

I don’t know whether or not his colleagues said, “Amen!” but they should have.

As I understand it, at this point the United Methodist Church has four choices.

We can get rid of the discriminatory language in the Book of Discipline and become a fully inclusive church.

We can embrace the idea that more severe  punishments will solve the problem. Under this plan there would be mandatory suspensions and expulsions for rule violations in terms of same sex weddings and LGBTQ clergy.

We can structure an amicable divorce. There would be a denomination for those who want to continue a practice of LGBTQ exclusion and another one for those who don’t.

Or we can allow for a local option in which Annual Conferences will decide whom to ordain and Pastors will decide whom they will marry.

The first three plans will all result in schism. The Wesleyan Covenant Association and its allies will not stay in a denomination that does not allow for discrimination. If we go with more severe punishments, some progressives may leave and others will continue to defy the rules, which will then lead to more WCA defections. And in the third option, the schism would be planned.

The problem with the local option is that it allows for both inclusion and discrimination.

Allowing for discrimination is not enough for the WCA  and it is too much for many progressives. The traditionalists want discriminatioin to be mandatory and the progressives want it to be prohibited.

What all four options have in common is that changes to our Discipline and structure will not change hearts and minds. Some folks will continue to exclude and others will continue to include. The debate is not really about what people will do or believe; it is about whether or not they will continue to call themselves United Methodists.

When the United States Congress passes a law against discrimination, everyone has to obey it. But church policy is a very different matter. If people don’t agree with a policy; they can leave. Churches and pastors don’t have to change their behavior; they can leave.

If it is not completely obvious in this post, regular readers of the blog know that I am passionately in favor of full inclusion for all of God’s people. In terms of Christian social ethics, this issue was settled years ago. But I also care deeply about local churches. Deciding whether or not a local church will support same sex weddings may be painful, but it will not be as painful as deciding whether or not to leave the denomination.

The traditionalists will change their minds on this issue, just as they changed on slavery and segregation and women’s issues. Times change. The moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. 

Change will come whether we separate or stay together. But I believe that change will come sooner if we stay together than if we separate.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.